1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to the field of equipment such as cables and conduits deployed on the bottom of a body of water. More specifically, the invention relates to devices for recovering such cables or conduits after they have been deployed on the water bottom for a selected length of time.
2. Background Art
The invention is related to a device that is intended to be attached to equipment or material, e.g., a seismic sensor cable or a conduit, disposed on the bottom of a body of water such as a lake or the ocean. When so disposed, recovery can be difficult due to the device being covered with ocean bottom material. As a result, recovery of the equipment can be a slow difficult process. Recovery of the equipment requires that the equipment is pulled laterally and axially out of the entrapping bottom sediments. The equipment will eventually come out of the bottom sediments if pulled on with sufficient stresses and for a long enough period of time. A difficulty with the foregoing recovery method is that the equipment is often damaged from the stresses applied and personnel and recovery equipment spend a substantial amount of time pulling on the equipment to dislodge it from the water bottom sediment rather than attending to the other duties.
Accordingly, there exists a need for better methods and devices for recovering equipment deployed on the bottom of a body of water.